A poem written in the temple of memory, fire, and survival
I lived with a ghost
for two and a half years.
He did not knock things off shelves,
did not wail in the dark.
No—
he was softer.
He sat behind my eyes.
He moved in my mouth.
He pressed his hands against my throat
every time I tried to speak.
I did not know what he was.
Only that he lived inside me.
Until one night—
I stood in the temple,
and told the truth.
He wasn’t there.
But everyone else was.
I read a poem
woven from silence and rage.
There was not a dry eye in the room.
They wept like women at a funeral.
They held me like something holy.
And I…
I thought I had been freed.
But healing is a haunted house.
It waits
until the lights are out
to show you what still lingers.
That’s when the memory came.
I remembered the golden light of that afternoon.
The quiet. The almost-safety.
I remembered telling him—
“If we’re dating,
I’m willing to go further.”
I thought it made me sound small.
But now I know—
It made me brave.
I gave him terms.
He gave me rejection.
And then—
he gave himself permission
to touch me anyway.
He kissed me
while saying no.
Fingered me
while refusing to claim me.
That is the cruelty.
That is the quiet, polite evil
they never teach us to name.
I didn’t fight.
I froze.
Because once you’ve already been touched,
already half-undone,
you start to believe the lie—
that you’ve already said yes.
He touched me like I was already his.
While making it clear—
I never would be.
And that’s when I knew:
He was a fraud.
A faithful fraud.
The kind of man who bows in the temple
with hands that still carry me.
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